Bill Gates: Control-Alt-Delete was a mistake

CNN ^ | 9/26/13 | Doug Gross

[Orangedog]

Would have been interesting if Gary Kildall had gotten that deal for CP/M. I guess the lesson to learn here is sign the damned NDA when someone as big as IBM asks. Instead, they wound up making a deal for a purloined copy of something Gates and Allen bought from a guy at a computer store.

[discostu]

That’s true I forgot about that, Enter is OK/ has focus and Escape is Cancel. And as somebody else pointed out Escape gets you out of full screen Flash content and back into window in the browser. So it still is used, just not for what you’d expect.

[cynwoody]

i will never forget when i was having trouble with the computer a 3 year old said “hit escape!” . i almoat fell over.

I will never forget the time a two-year old in his mother's arms reached out and pushed the Red Button on an IBM mainframe.

[trubolotta]

Wow, interesting you brought that up. Few people know how Gates got started and his parallel development of MS-DOS.

[Bullish]

I do realize that. I was playing around with computers since long before Windows and everything was done out of DOS but those days are gone forever and I’m glad.

[Orangedog]

Bill Gates should be spending every waking public moment apologizing for the obscenity that is Windows 8.

Give them some credit...they finally found a way to make Vista look good.

[so_real]

"Once upon a time when I was young ..." Ctrl-Alt-Del was *the* way to reboot a DOS PC. :-) There was no other way shy of hitting the power switch or pulling the power cord. And, to be sure, it was a good thing it took three keystrokes to do it. A single key reboot would have been disastrous.

[Arthur McGowan]

I had Windoze Millenium. On that, Ctrl-Alt-Delete caused a hard reboot.

Now I have Vista. On that, Ctrl-Alt-Delete gives me a “desktop,” from which I can choose the Program Manager, Restart, Shut Down, etc.

[ChildOfThe60s]

C-alt-D doesn’t cause a reboot, it just opens the task manager and other tools.

Chuckle. It didn't start out that way.

Things have not always been as they are, and they will not always be as they are now.

My first 286 16 had DOS 3.1 on it and a manual that may as well have been in a foreign language when I first opened it. Ctrl-Alt-Del had a little more dramatic effect than it does now.

[Orangedog]

Yeah, try doing that kind of “parallel development” with today’s IP laws and you could damn near end up in an orange jumpsuit.

[Robert A Cook PE]

I do realize that. I was playing around with computers since long before Windows and everything was done out of DOS but those days are gone forever and I’m glad.

Hah!

Everything past the DOS prompt is just a different way to run the same DOS commands. Slower way, that is. Not better.

[Bullish]

I also started with DOS 3. In fact my first computer was a TRS-(?)(I forget the #) It didn’t really do much but you could program it to do some simple routines. It was still fun though, and I’ve been going ever since.

[Robert A Cook PE]

The survivors are buried later - after they die when they die. 8<)

[Bullish]

I realize everything still runs under windows in DOS, but having to remember all the syntax is gone forever. Long live the GUI!

[dfwgator]

I’m still looking for the “any” key.

[Signalman]

I’ve been trying to find the “any” key. I was reading a manual for a new piece of software I purchased and it said, “press any key”.

Still can’t find it.

[Signalman]

Great minds think alike.

[Robert A Cook PE]

Told somebody - about 20+) to “carriage return” ....
He had no idea what that meant, nor why the carriage return became “enter” in today’s world.

It is still easiest to remember the ctrl-c, ctrl-p, ctrl-x, ctrl-y, ctrl-v, and ctrl-z purposes if you have used to old editor’s markups on written paper.

[gitmo]

Press any key to continue.

NOT THAT KEY YOU FOOL!!!!

[tacticalogic]

I realize everything still runs under windows in DOS, but having to remember all the syntax is gone forever. Long live the GUI!

Actually Windows server management is going away from the GUI, back to the command line (except now it's Powershell instead of DOS).